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Saturday, 28 December 2013

France right now is what a Labour government would be like - unemployment rising, no deficit reduction plan

"Business confidence is falling. Unemployment has risen to 10.9%, a 16-year high. Only months after escaping one recession, the nation is on the brink of another. Time to adopt Labour's plan B? No, because this is France – plan B is already in place, and the bad economic news is its grisly fruit.

At one time, it seemed as if the British left would never stop talking about a grand economic alternative to austerity. There was even a march for the alternative - though none of its proponents were very specific about exactly how the alternative would work. The most you could get out of them was this: austerity would be stopped; the rich would be made to pay far higher taxes; the deficit could look after itself, or else it would be magically paid off by a plan-B boom."

If you want more spending, more borrowing and no turnaround of the British economy then do vote Labour. The reality is that you will end up with a scenario that is just like France, which is failing to confront the problem that it continues to spend more than it earns. This leads to greater unemployment, no growth, a relapse into further recession and no action on the deficit.